spring’s autumn

Memory bridges our past with the present

and brings us to an awareness that life is a cyclic process

that demonstrates the dynamic forces

of togetherness and separation; therefore,

this moment is a reflection

within fragments of a past and of a self revisited while in this process.

What do you understand?

One sound,

the voice of autumn ~ Ichishi*

*source:

Japanese Death Poems

Yoel Hoffman

a reflection within a water drop

in this world

i have found

no perfect drop of dew-

not even on the lotus ~Issa*

 

As I sort through the various threads of thought, imaginings, memories and beliefs I have woven into a tapestry that illustrates my companionship with a silent sense of saudade, I come to see a life colored by attempts to evade or expunge an underlying current of dissatisfaction. This discontent is generally felt as a yearning for something undefined, or a vague sense that things are not quite right.  It comes in the wake of the realization that dreams are unreachable, and expectations only create more turmoil. Sometimes it erupts as sorrow, grief, anguish, or despair.  As a result, I question where is the wellspring of this homesickness for a place, a person, a time that that I continue to search for despite a knowing that it simply cannot be?

Buddhist psychology seeks to uncover the truth of human suffering and to find a path that leads to the cessation of suffering.  The first two truths speak of suffering and its nature, while the third and fourth truths outline a life path that will bring about the cessation of suffering.

The First Noble Truth nudges me out of my own immersion within the misery of suffering through its validation that suffering is a universal occurrence despite one’s race, culture, or affiliations.  Even those who say, “all’s right with the world,” are impacted by the constant state of flux within their life and thus experience anxiety.

To be born is to struggle with physical changes that occur in conjunction with developmental milestones, to feel the pain that accompanies physical and medical frailties, and to wrestle with the process of dying and with death itself.  To be human is to be dissatisfied with the wanting and obtaining of that which is pleasant, to know the fading of initial pleasure, as well as to experience the discomfort of unpleasant sounds, sights, scents, tastes, physical sensations, and thoughts.  To be open to life is to experience the range of human feelings, be it fear, anger, sadness, and joy.  To be with others is to know the distress of – real or imagined and spoken or unspoken – inclusion and exclusion.

The first truth also extends these truths of suffering to the unsatisfactory nature and general insecurity inherent in the law of impermanency.  That is, all the phenomena of existence whatsoever, even the awe-inspiring and the horrifying, are subject to change and dissolution. Those who know the pleasures found within substances also are acquainted with the unease that accompanies excess. We all intimately know the truth of this impermanency in our longings to feel emotionally close to others, which soon changes into a yearning for separation. Consequently, without exception discontent does arise.

Suffering is clinging to the illusion of an unchanging self; that is, to a belief there is a permanent self within the ongoing process of physical and mental occurrences which constantly arise, disintegrate, and dissolve. Hume wrote that self is a “bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed each other with inconceivable rapidity, and in a perpetual flux and movement.”  He further suggested that we create an idea of self as we processes our perception of events and things.  Thus, there is not a tangible sense of self that remains consistent from one moment to the next. To desire, crave, or cling to a solid consistent self where there is only a changing psycho-physical complex is to create conditions that generate sorrow, grief, and dejection.^[1]

The feeling of an “I” emerges from a reflection of the stream of experiential consciousness that awakens when one becomes aware of being observed by an internalized watcher or seer who is felt but never known.   Therefore, there is no denying that there is a wavering consciousness, an “I”, that knits together streams of memories, thoughts, feelings, and interactions in such a manner that we are able to formulate an awareness of identity, continuity, striving, as well as an sense of ourselves and others.

Memory bridges our past with the present

and brings us to an awareness that life is a cyclic process

that demonstrates the dynamic forces of togetherness and separation;

therefore, this moment is but a reflection within fragments of a past

and of a self revisited while in this process.

sources:

* The Year of my Life

trans: Nobuyuki Yuasa

[1] B. Russell, A History of Western Philosophy (New York, 1945).

a quote…”The Captive Mind”

Man tends to regard the order he lives in as natural. The houses he passes on his way to work seem more like rocks rising out of the earth than like products of human hands. He considers the work he does in his office or factory as essential to the harmonious functioning of the world. The clothes he wears are exactly what they should be, and he laughs at the idea that he might equally well be wearing a Roman toga or medieval armor.  He respects and envies a minister of state or a bank director, and regards the possession of a considerable amount of money as the main guarantee of peace and security. He cannot believe that one day a rider may appear on a street he knows well, where cats sleep and children play, and start catching passers-by with his lasso.  He is accustomed to satisfying those of his physiological needs which are considered private as discreetly as possible, without realizing that such a pattern of behavior is not common to all human societies.

http://www.criterion.com/films/27565-the-gold-rush

In a word, he behaves a little like Charlie Chaplin in The Gold Rush, bustling about in a shack poised precariously on the edge of a cliff.

reference:

The Captive Mind

Czeslaw Milosz

mental hindrances III

don’t swat the fly

who begs your pardon

wringing his hands and legs ~Issa*

The arising of ill will hinders one’s interactions with self and others. Ill will is a synonym for aversion.  It is felt as hatred, envy, anger, self-pity, and resentment.  It is seen in the repulsion we have towards others, objects, situations, and ourselves.  An introspective mind that is overcome with ill will can be equated to a person looking for her reflection in a pot of boiling water.

The goal of metta meditation (a meditation of loving-kindness) is to wish happiness for all beings.  This practice begins with first extending love to one’s self by saying, “I will rid my mind of anger, hatred, ignorance, fear, greed, and craving.  I will make my mind clear, fresh and pure.  Like a transparent window is my mind and I pour out thoughts of love and kindness to myself.”

The practice moves you to another as you recall a mental image of someone dear to you.  Imagine yourself within their being, feel his or her personality, enter your own being and direct loving-kindness into the mind and heart of that person.  Repeat this with other people with whom you feel emotionally close.  In time extend this warmth and kindness to others in your life; for example, people who live in your neighborhood, the grocery clerk, your co-workers, and eventually all beings on earth and beyond.

If you find during this practice that disturbing thoughts and feelings arise in conjunction with an image of a person, take this as a message that it is not the right time to extend loving-kindness to this particular person. With soothing self acceptance, return to extending warmth and loving-kindness to your self.

I find it amazing to acknowledge the strength by which our ego holds onto our feelings and beliefs as if they were objects to possess or tangible entitlements to protect despite their potential to consume or destroy.  It is as if feelings have the creative ability to create story lines and to take our mind hostage while formulating validation, rationalization, and justification for their continued presence.  For example, anger once awakened by other feelings—such as, pride, jealousy, fear, or grief—seems to have an uncanny ability to recall historical events to justify its continued presence as well as to drawn upon an unlimited supply of resources to insure its survival.

To become mindful of ill will one must first discern it arising without acceptance of its justifications with, “ill will is rising within me.”  As it is abandoned, “ill will within me is abandoned.” While it is fading, “ill will is ceasing within me.”  When it is gone, “there is no ill will present within me.”  To ease anger and ill will, one is directed to meditate on loving-kindness.

 cited in:

Inch by Inch

trans: Nanao Sakaki

 

mental hindrances II

such quantities of wind

on the floor of a spacious

summer room –

and still not quite enough! ~ Issa*

 

I have come to understand that overtime my meditation practice will result in a greater awareness of the sublime states: compassion, loving-kindness, sympathetic joy, and equanimity.  With the comprehension of each of these sublime states and discernment of their unique qualities, my practice can be extended to include an intention to breathe in the understanding of a particular sublime state and to breathe out that same awareness.  Each in and out breath is co-joined with a mindfulness that is ardent, alert, and steady as well as absent of greed and suffering.

What often impacts my practice is one of the five hindrances, desire’s lure.  Desire pulls me away from my meditation intention of mindfulness as my attention is drawn towards that which carries an implied promise of pleasure or escape from the suffering within suffering.

William James noted that desire, wish, and will are states of mind common to everyone:  “We desire to feel, to have, to do, all sorts of things which at the moment are not felt, had, or done. If with the desire there goes a sense that attainment is not possible, we simply wish; but if we believe that the end is in our power, we will that the desired feeling, having, or doing shall be real; and real it presently becomes, either immediately upon the will or after certain preliminaries have been fulfilled.”[1]

The craving for sensual desire is understood as a yearning for sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and touches that are pleasant as well as a longing for wealth, power, position, and fame.  Craving is known by an addict as a need to find a substance that once promised euphoria and now only postpones suffering. It is known in the anxiety that comes with thoughts about losing what one has and the fear of the emptiness that follows a loss.   It is seen in the vague depression within boredom, which has the potential to either imprison behind walls of angry resentment or energize a life filled with excitement and challenges.  The Buddha noted that that the obtainment of that which we desire has the potential to be like easing thirst with salt water, the temporary relief returns with thirst multiplied.

When our minds are filled with desire, it is like trying to focus upon one’s reflection in a bowl of water filled with multi-colored precious stones.  That is, when we are overpowered by desires and cravings, we are not able to foresee consequences and become limited in our ability to recall learned moral lessons. It is suggested that the meditation on impermanence may assist with containing the pleasure-seeking mind. To remove the desire for excitement and new experiences one is encouraged to mediate on impure objects, to guard the sense doors, to eat in moderation, and to engage in noble friendships and suitable conversations.

To effectively contain desire one must first acknowledge its presence without distraction by noting, “pleasure seeking is rising within me.”  As it is abandoned, “an intention to experience desirable experiences is abandoned.”  While it fades, “an intention to experience desirable experiences is ceasing.”  When it is gone, “there is no intention to experience desirable experiences within me.”

*cited in:

The Year of My Life

Trans: Nobuyuki Yuasa

---

[1] William James, The Principles of Psychology, (New York, 1890), 486.

mental hindrances

In stillness there is fullness,

in fullness there is nothingness,

in nothingness there are all things.~ Anonymous

What may interfere with one’s meditation practice is the awakening of one of the five mental hindrances: 1) restlessness and worry, 2) craving for desirable experiences, 3) ill-will, 4) lack of trust/a divided heart, and 5) half-hearted action/apathy. These hindrances block our ability to move away from our investment in the self and to truly acknowledge the interdependence and interconnectedness of all living beings. They are intertwined into the suffering within, “the good I would do, I do not.  The evil I would not do, I do.”

Restlessness and worry overpower our minds in the same matter the wind stirs and agitates a pond, producing waves and ripples on the surface. Boredom and craving create mental states similar to a pot of water that has been colored with red, yellow, blue, and orange dye. That is, when we are overpowered by desires and cravings, we are not able to foresee consequences and become limited in our ability to recall learned moral lessons.  Ill-will is like a pot of water heated on the fire. The seething and boiling keeps us prisoner to aversion and hatred. Indecisiveness and a divided heart impacts our ability to reflect upon our feelings and creates a mind that is like a pot of water that is turbid, stirred up and muddy. Foggy-mindedness and apathy overcomes and takes us hostage as if we were being smothered by algae and water plants.[1]

Restlessness is known as the agitation that propels us from one thought to another as thoughts swing from greed to aversion and from attachment to discontent.  Worry comes from the remorse we have about past mistakes and the subsequent anxiety that follows imaged consequences.  When agitation and remorse appears it is like trying to see one’s reflection in a pond being swept by the wind.

To contain restlessness and worry one must first acknowledge its presence without being drawn into its current by noting, “restlessness and worry is rising within me.”  As they are abandoned, “restlessness and worry within me is abandoned.” While they fade, “restlessness and worry is ceasing within me.”  When they are gone, “there is no restlessness and worry present within me.”

Restlessness and worry are most effectively countered by turning the mind to a simple object that tends to calm it down; the method usually recommended is mindfulness of breathing, attention to the in-and-out flow of the breath.

---

[1] Weragoda Sarada Ven Theor, Treasury of Truth, Buddha Dharma Education Association, 774-78; Nyanaponika Thera, The Five Mental Hindrances and Their Conquest (1993).

the arising of saudade

Reading is an exterior exercise; meditation belongs to the interior intellect.  

Prayer operates at the level of desire.  Contemplation transcends every sense. ~ Guigo

The arising of saudade* has the power to imprison me to its feelings of anguished desolation. Underneath this homesickness is a calling for a disciplined courage to help depart this state of mind and to wait beside a tranquil pool of water, alone, with a redefined faith that a guide, teacher, companion, savior will arrive to accompany me on a journey of reconciliation.

Within this waiting, I hear a whispered invitation to engage in a mindfulness practice guided by the art of Lectio Divina, a very ancient Christian practice that has been kept alive in the Christian monastic tradition.  Lectio Divina, a Latin term meaning “divine reading”, is a practice that involves a slow, reflective reading of the Scriptures wherein one listens, reverently, for the still voice of God. This spiritual activity is one that includes mindfulness, meditation, insight, and contemplation.

The practice begins with quieting the mind and cultivating the ability to listen deeply. In the twelfth century, Guigo, a Carthusian monk, described the four stages he considered essential to this practice.  He identified the first stage as lectio (reading) where the Word of God is read, slowly and reflectively.  Lectio opens the door to understanding. The second stage is meditatio (reflection). When a word or a passage is understood, the text is memorized while the reader gently repeats the words.  The repetition interacts with one’s thoughts, hopes, memories, and desires.  Through this process of rumination, the deepest aspects of self absorb the text’s meaning. (The image of the ruminant animal quietly chewing its cud was used in antiquity as a symbol of the Christian pondering the Word of God.)

The third stage is oratio (response), during which thinking subsides and one engages in a dialogue with God.  That is, there is a transcending of self with a power beyond oneself in such a way that the absorbed meaning transforms the self in a profound and deep manner.  From this, conscience guides one to a life lived more fully and intently.

The final stage of Lectio Divina is contemplatio (rest) where all thoughts, understandings, and meanings subside.  One is invited to simply rest and listen in silence as one is embraced by God, is home, once again.

Lectio Divina is not a goal-oriented practice in which one reaches unity though a step-by-step, technique-by-technique process.  It is a journey that awakens me, as a lay-person, to the arising and vanishing of thoughts and feelings, and to the ebb and flow between speaking and listening, between questioning and reflecting.

The worldviews of Christianity and Buddhism, as I presently understand them, converge with the suggestions that this sense of homesickness that arises and then fades may be a trace memory of wholeness—of pure emotional connection—and that this sense of home will arise again, and again it will vanish.

From a Western point of view, representing something with words and focusing on them is an “intellectual” process, while representing something through a feeling or image and focusing on through these senses is an “intuitive” process. Intellectual understanding united with intuitive awakening opens doors to greater insight.

The Buddha said that the ultimate truth of things is directly visible, timeless and calling out to be approached and seen.  This reality is always available to us, and that the place where it is to be realized is within oneself.  The ultimate truth is not something mysterious and remote, but the truth of our own experience. It can be reached only by understanding our experience, by penetrating it right through to its foundations.  This truth, in order to become liberating truth, has to be known directly.  That is known by insight, grasped and absorbed by a kind of knowing which is also an immediate seeing.

Wakefulness naturally radiates out when we are not so concerned with ourselves and are able to truly acknowledge the interdependence and connectedness of all that is.

I feel an invitation to be in the moment with stilled silence, I am home.

The still center of being . . . whispers, “Realize Me.”  No sooner is it glimpsed then it is gone. ~ Guigo

*Saudade is a unique Portuguese word that has no immediate translation in English. In the book In Portugal of 1912, A. F. G. Bell writes: The famous saudade of the Portuguese is a vague and constant desire for something that does not and probably cannot exist, for something other than the present, a turning towards the past or towards the future; not an active discontent or poignant sadness but an indolent dreaming wistfulness.  (cited in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudade)

everything is pretending

One day as I was about to step on a dry leaf, I saw the leaf in the ultimate dimension.

I saw that it was not really dead, but that it was merging with the moist soil in order to appear on the tree the following spring in another form.

I smiled at the leaf and said, “You are pretending.”  Everything is pretending to be born and pretending to die, including the leaf.

The Buddha said, “When conditions are sufficient, the body reveals itself, and we say the body exists.  When conditions are not sufficient, the body cannot be perceived by us, and we say the body does not exist.”  The day of our “death” is a day of our continuation in many forms.

If you know how to touch your ancestors in the ultimate dimension, they will always be there with you.  If you touch your own hand, face, or hair and look very deeply, you can see that they are there in you smiling.  This is a deep practice.

The ultimate dimension is a state of coolness, peace, and joy.  It is not a state to be attained after you “die.”  You can touch the ultimate dimension right now by breathing, walking, and drinking your tea in mindfulness…

A farmer looking at his landing winter can already see his crop, because he knows that all of the conditions are there – land, seeds, water, fertilizer, farm equipment, and so on – except one, warm weather, and that will come in a matter of months.  So it would be inaccurate to say his crop does not exist.  It is already there.  It needs only one more condition to manifest.    We are entirely capable of touching the ultimate dimension.  When we touch one thing with deep awareness, we touch everything.  Touching the present moment, we realize that the present is made of the past and is creating the future.

~Thich Nhat Hana, Living Buddha, Living Christ

photo friday: machine

Machine: (verb)

1. tools: instrument, mill, mechanize, motorize, sharpen
2.  process: convert, carve, chisel, mine, extract, refine, cultivate, harvest

Word associations “machine”

 tool >  instrument ( window latch) > refine one’s sheltered thoughts > open self to  the mines of others > harvest universal understanding

 

People usually fail when they are on the verge of success.

So give as much care to the end as to the beginning.

Then there will be no failure. ~Lao Tsu, Tao Te Ching

memory hidden within silence

a butterfly

flutters past–my body feels

the dust of ages ~Issa

–

my father also

studied these high mountains

from his winter hut ~Issa

At the threshold of stillness within silence, the scent of mothballs signals the opening of a small steamboat trunk entrusted with long-forgotten memorabilia.  Carefully placed upon a layer of women’s 1930 era clothing are three stacks of yellow ribbon-tied envelopes. Within each are hand-written letters reminiscent of second grade penmanship inquiring, “Dear Mother, how are you?  Fine I hope.”  On the left side is a stationery box filled with certificates of marriage, birth, baptism, and death intermingled with a child’s brilliantly colored drawings. Beneath the box is a small silk sachet holding a solitary diamond engagement ring and an ivory locket.  At the bottom of the trunk, children’s books and wooden blocks with carved letters surround a miniature wooden rocking chair and a one-button eyed velvety-patched teddy bear. I become distracted from the remaining contents as black and white photograph images softly held within the folds of a woman’s garnet silk dress glide in the air and scatter upon the floor.

The photographic images are a visual memoir of a young family where trust once allowed two young sisters to roam free throughout a field of tall, yellowed grass.  “How many days,” my questioning mind wonders, “how many days were left before the decline of my father’s health shifted the lights of a colorful present into the gray-shaded time of waiting?” Within this stillness of waiting, memory tells of a young child seeking solace through repetitive rocking behaviors and of a father’s fragile heart enduring a turbulent wait for a donated aorta.

Loving-kindness and compassion soften the shield around my heart and I begin to feel how my father intuitively knew of my inner turmoil and of the tranquil stillness within rhythmic repetition.   His gift of a rocking chair tells me some fifty years after his death of the multiple emotional and physical sufferings within his suffering, the interconnectedness of the suffering within the family, and of his wish to ease our suffering.

The 22nd of February is the anniversary of my father’s birth; his memory  hidden within silence.

this world of dew

is only the world of dew `

and yet … oh and yet … ~ Issa

Issa haiku cited in:

The Spring of  My Life and Selected Haiku

Kobayashi Issa

Trans:  Sam Hamill